Recently, there is a tendency of the whole world to be connected by a single network via the Internet communication network using computers. The Internet has been already developed into part of a life. The Internet is not temporarily used only by persons in a specific group for specific purposes, but has become means from and through which normal persons obtain living information and enjoy their leisure.
Although there may be many reasons for the increase in the population of the use of the Internet, the development of the operating system of Personal Computers (PCs) to the Windows Operating System that is easier and more convenient to use than Disk Operating System (DOS) that is difficult to use has played an important role.
One of the characteristics of the above-described Windows Operating System is that means for inputting commands is not limited to a keyboard but convenient and various input means, such as a mouse, a joystick and a digitizer, can be used at the same time, which enables a user to execute desired predetermined commands without being aware of the operating system or instructions of a computer system.
However, in the above-described environment, it is essential to use a keyboard in order to enter the address of a home page, an ID, a password, or a search term. This is fundamentally caused by the characteristic in which characters have many elements, that is, the English alphabet has 26 characters and the Korean alphabet has 33 characters (including consonant digraphs and vowel pairs).
Furthermore, a handicapped person who cannot use a keyboard due to the impairment of his or her hands but can use a mouse or a joystick or an old person or a child who is poor at the manipulation of a keyboard inevitably visits only frequently visited domains solely depending on a mouse because he or she must enter the address of a desired home page into an address bar in the form of a text character string while browsing the Internet, so that there arises a problem in that he or she limitedly uses the Internet that includes great functionality and a large amount of information.
In order to overcome the above problem, a character input window configured to enable desired characters to be input only using a mouse and a character input method using the character input window were proposed.
The prior art character input window and the prior art character input method using the character input window will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of a screen of a typical web browser, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a state in which a prior art character input window is displayed on a web browser, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the construction of the screen of the prior art character input window.
As shown in FIG. 1, a typical web browser 10 includes a web page window 12 for displaying an accessed web page, a toolbar 14 for displaying tools required for the use of the web browser 10, and an address bar 16 for enabling the address of a website to be entered therein. Furthermore, when an accessed web page corresponds to a portal website or a website, a search box 18 for enabling a search term to be entered therein appears on a web page.
In this case, when a mouse cursor is located on the address bar 16 or the search box 18 and a signal is input using a function button (not shown) of a mouse so as to activate a character input window, a character input window 20 appears on the web browser, as shown in FIG. 2. The character input window 20 is provided with a virtual keyboard 22 configured to have an arrangement substantially identical to the key arrangement of an actual keyboard, a preview box 24 for displaying a relevant character when a user locates a mouse cursor on the virtual keyboard 22 and performs a click, and activation buttons 26 for generating an activation signal to send or cancel an input character.
Accordingly, when a user clicks a character key of the virtual keyboard 22 using a mouse, a corresponding character appears in the preview box 24. When the corresponding activation button 26 is pressed after the completion of the input of the character, the character appearing in the preview box 24 is entered in the address bar 16 or the search box 18. That is, when the prior art character input window 20 is used, characters can be entered into the web browser 10 only using the mouse.